Showering People. Wiping Bums. Nope.

Last week, in the shallow end, during a lesson of how to breathe out through my nose, I told my swim instructor I was getting into support work.

Yes, yes, I'm learning to swim. More like unlearning 40 years of bad habits. Let's move on.

She listened. Head tilted, goggles pushed up on her forehead. Then she told me her family had floated the idea once.

"I can't see myself doing it," she said. "I mean, showering people, wiping their bums. Nope. Not for me."

It stung a little.

Also made me laugh, because she said it the way you'd turn down a second helping of ice cream you had already tried.

And here's the thing I've been chewing on since. I had the speech ready. It's more than that. It's companionship, it's dignity, it's the 84-year-old who just wants someone to notice her garden, and have a cup of tea with her. It's the gentleman who played golf for 60 years talking about his glory days on the greens. I could have delivered it.

I didn't. Regardless of my beliefs, there were doubts.

Most of the work IS personal care. That's the job. The companionship, the dignity, the thing that matters most to the person on the receiving end, all of it arrives through the shower, the toilet, the dressing, the meal.

There's no separate, glamorous department where the real caring happens after the unglamorous stuff is done. It's the same hands, the same repeatable process.

Remember the man with the Croatian flag? The phrases I learned on my phone were for eating and feeding. Mealtime words. That's what I had to work with, and it's what got me the smile. The connection didn't come in spite of the practical stuff. It came through it.

So when she said "nope," I couldn't argue. She'd described the job accurately. She just hadn't seen the other half of the sentence.

I changed the subject, and asked what she wants to do with her life.

"I don't know. teach swimming three or four days a week and am still figuring it out."

I felt a pang. That's not where my life is. Not knowing, with the whole road open, is a luxury I'm two decades past.

I once wrote about hiding what I do... the imaginery flinch that if someone asks what I do, I tell them and they'd reduce it to "personal care".

Turns out the flinch is a good sign. It means I care what the work is.

The answer to "nope, not for me" isn't an argument. It's a face that lights up over a Katherine Jenkins song, or a lady who asks "Would you have a cup of tea with me?"

I'll let them make the case.